Page 5 of Of Realms and Chaos

Who wanted to read about wars past when we were constantly on the brink of one? Who wanted to read about the gods when they never answered my prayers anyways? Who wanted to read about smut when there was always a willing female to fuck?

Perhaps I had been wrong. Asher’s love for reading, her eagerness to escape from a world she felt so lost and alone in, made sense. Though what I had done with the books instead had brought me my own version of escape.

“You did not do that to a book,” Asher said with a gasp. I chuckled, grabbing the small vial from inside the pages I had jaggedly hollowed out with a dagger many years prior. “Stupid demon, you vandalized it!”

Her smack stung against my arm, but the giggles that filled the room made me think she was not quite as mad as she was attempting to portray herself. I smiled at her, a wicked and mischievous raise of my lips.

“I needed something to pass the time, and this right here did an astonishingly fine job of keeping Henry and I distracted from our studies.”

That perked her up, gray eyes widening as she stepped closer and inspected the teardrop-shaped vile of lavender colored liquid.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It was something Henry and I had cooked up after many failed attempts. If you drink it, you lose all inhibitions. It brings euphoria and energy to the surface while masking fear and nerves,” I said, eyeing her to gauge her reaction.

Asher did not disappoint. Her mouth dropped open, and a book fell from her hands. For a moment she remained that way, frozen in shock and disbelief, then she burst into laughter. The melodic sound of her full and unencumbered amusement, the view of her throat when her head tilted back, made something low within me stir.

She was driving me mad.

I had not been this horny since that one time Henry and I had spent a week straight in a shady Eros brothel. In fact, the very concoction in my hand had single-handedly helped us work through the predicament of an odd number of female entertainers. I silently chuckled at the memory of us settling on sharing the odd one out.

None of them compared to Asher though. To the way the Sun magic glinted off her large eyes and full lips. To the curve of her neck and the sultry sound of her voice. To the way she commanded every room she walked into. She made me want to fall to my knees and pray to her.

“Books are good for something it seems,” I said, my voice hoarse from my frantic thoughts.

“You would be surprised what you can find in a book, Your Highness,” she responded.

Her hand moved to her chest, fingers slowly grazing the black fighting leathers and lingering just above her full breasts. I swallowed, salivating as she let her hand trace her curves.

“Like what?” I asked, not trying to hide the way my voice deepened in yearning.

With calculated slowness, she began backing away from me. A groan escaped my mouth when I watched her hand disappear behind her back then heard the sound of buttons popping free.

She would be the death of me.

With immense effort, I maintained her pace, stalking her like a predator hunting its prey. Yes, that was what I was. Because, when the game ended, I would devour her.

“Well, I once read this tantalizing book where the male tied the female to a bed. Glorious descriptions, if I do say. I especially enjoyed the vivid way the writer described how the ropes chafed as the female climaxed.” Her fingers slipped under her leather trousers, and I lost all control.

I ran at her, dipping low to pick her up with one hand and roughly tug her hair to bring her lips to my own with the other.

She smelled of vanilla from her bath that morning and tasted like the mint leaves she constantly chewed. Everything about her was intoxicating in a way that no mead or wine could ever compete with. She was delicious and addicting and mine.

Her arms were around my neck, hands in my hair. Setting her down on a large table I distinctly recalled once passing out drunk on, I pressed her down until her back thudded against the dark wood.

Taking her this time was different. It had been an unbearably slow burn of need that led up to the first time I was inside of her. Even when I had her a second and third time last night, it was surreal. A year of dreaming about what I would do to her when I had her in my arms had made me sloppy and desperate.

Now, with her beneath me on the table, I could show her what I truly had to offer. I could give her anything and everything and watch as she unraveled from the pleasure of it all.

I broke off our kiss, pressing my hand to her chest when she tried to follow me as I stood up straight. Her bottom lip jutted out, pouting like a youngling who did not get their way.

With deftness that seemed to take her off guard, I ripped her leathers over her head, tossing the top and then moving to pull off her shoes before yanking off her trousers in one clean motion. She gasped, but it was I who was left speechless. Her naked body was luminous, olive skin glowing in the demon light above. The chandelier reflected small rainbows over her body, like she was covered in thousands of tiny diamonds. Her brown curls were fanned around her, already somewhat knotted from my tugging on them.

I drank her in like a dehydrated male in the desert. That was where I felt I was these days, living in a constant state of desire—eager for a taste of her.

With no explanation, I began backing up to the many windows on the nearest wall. Her brows scrunched as I threw open the sky-blue curtains, giving us a view of the setting sun as it met the horizon. It bathed her in orange and pink, the rainbows from the chandelier mixing and making her look like a goddess in the flesh. Like Asta as she descended The Above. Fitting, as she too had stolen the heart of demon royalty.

“I want to see all of you. Every minute detail. I want to learn you, to study you. I want the shape of your body to be burned into my mind—my soul. And, once I have seen it all, I want to lick every inch of you,” I rasped.

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